am i an Afterthought

1: an idea occurring later

2: something (such as a part or feature) not thought of originally: something secondary

Am I an Afterthought?

It didn’t occur to me that I was an Afterthought

I became an afterthought the moment they pulled me from my mother’s womb and proclaimed it’s a girl

I’ve learned to live as an Afterthought even in my own mind

I was defined an Afterthought because my skin was laced with melanin and kissed by the sun

I didn’t know that even in my own subconscious I too was an Afterthought

So do I blame those who view me an Afterthought and take me for granted Or does that blame lay squarely on me for allowing myself to be just that: a thought an idea that occurs later; an Afterthought

My needs, my wants, my desires, my hopes, my dreams, an afterthought

An Afterthought after that of those of my kids, my family, my husband, my job, my church, my community, my friends then I think of me

Is it out of selfish ambition lack of confidence or a need to be needed that compels me to put others before me

Is it an indictment of the twisted predicament and reality that exist because I live in this sunkissed skin and what lies between my legs seems built to give rather than perceive pleasure

An afterthought not originally considered

2nd, no 3rd, no unseen citizen, afterthought

Am I an Afterthought because I lack initials before or after my name

Am I an Afterthought because my family didn’t walk the pristine halls of the academy

Am I an Afterthought because we built the walls and washed the floors instead

Am I an Afterthought because I don’t know the rules to your game that change the moment I enter in

Am I an Afterthought?

An Afterthought

The bridge that is my back allowing passage for hundreds and thousands as they stand upon my shoulders, my pain, my burden, to move into the sunlight of justice that I will never know

Can there be justice for me if even within my own consciousness I’m an Afterthought

Will radical self-love and empowering self-definition coupled with reinvigorated agency lead me to think of what I need first and foremost or will the world that has conditioned me made me shaped me continue to keep me trapped as an Afterthought even within my own body, my own mind, my own soul.

An Afterthought 
secondary not original... I am but an Afterthought

What then do I make of Your words that say I’m fearfully and wonderfully made in the womb of your created, in the body that only You deemed fitting enough to bear, carry, and bring forth life

Am I to believe that she came from a man and she too was an Afterthought or am I to believe that her creation created both maleness and femaleness on the basis of biology and not gender for it was not until she came that he was and that he was that she is.

Was she too an Afterthought to you too Father God wait no Mother God to which shall I ascribe and call your name.

Was I too an Afterthought when You proclaimed that before the foundations of the earth You knew me

Was I too an Afterthought when You said my name was inscribed in Your hand

Was I too an Afterthought in the mind, in the eye of the Almighty

Was I an Afterthought when you chose to become incarnate in the flesh of giver of life in whose body that resembled my own

Was I too an Afterthought when you placed your son at my bosom to nurture and raise as Immanuel

Was I an Afterthought when You told me daughter my faith healed me when I crawled to your hem

Was I an Afterthought when I asked for scraps from Your table to feed my little ones

Was I an Afterthought when I wept in Your temple from the pain of being an Afterthought

Was I an Afterthought when I cried at Your feet and anointed You before you died

Was I an Afterthought when I walked alongside You as You carried that cross not denying your name

Was I an Afterthought when I stayed by You with until You breathed Your last breath on that hillside

Was I an Afterthought when You asked me to fetch water when you had no pail

Was I an Afterthought when You granted me wisdom to instruct and judge and rule

Was I an Afterthought when I defied Pharaoh and birthed that child into the world

Was I an Afterthought when I watched by to ensure my river child would survive

Was I an Afterthought when I went before the king unsummoned to lead a rebellion

Was I an Afterthought even though they didn’t give me a name

Was I an Afterthought when I called and named You the God who sees

Was I an Afterthought even to You whose image I bear

An afterthought an idea occurring later

If then I was not and am not an Afterthought what then do I say to those who still do not see me

How then do I deal with the pain of being invisible living as an Afterthought

What then do I do when I have lived as an Afterthought for so long it’s inconceivable to just be a Thought even in my own mind

The guilt and the shame of seeing me first collide in such a way that make it impossible to breathe

Yes, yes, I know I am not an afterthought yet so much that revolves around and that is in my life reminds me beckons me to just be that—an Afterthought

Leaving me to fight to grasp just to catch breath of air that laced with normativity that makes it even difficult to breathe

Must I fight to just live to just breathe to just have those inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that did not and most days do not apply to me a Black woman

The unmistakable reality that we all knew existed but wished it wasn’t the case is I’ve always been an Afterthought confined to live as an afterthought an appendix to the Black man’s story and an addendum to the White woman’s saga pitted against both struggles and made invisible just the same

Must I be an Afterthought or

Can I be a Thought in my own story, in my own mind  

Can my story be able allowed to stand on the shelves without male toxicity and white fragility crying out because they somehow feel I’m diminishing their shine their light

Can my story stand just stand...oh you say it can

Pray tell why then do you keep moving me to appendix the addendum as an Afterthought to what is central and what you call normative.

Today I must ask myself will I succumb to the fate of Black Widow who’s been an Afterthought to Marvel’s hero whose sacrifice though needed has been treated like an Afterthought and her life tossed away for a cause that only saw her as an Afterthought

An afterthought they had neither time nor patience enough to mourn

But for today I will say I am not an Afterthought

I’ll be honest I’m not sure how I am to live...maybe I’ll be and live today as though it’s my last free and unapologetically so and as though I belong and am no longer an Afterthought

And maybe I’ll manage through my waking hours to live as a Thought and not what comes after.

But deep down I know tomorrow when I wake no matter where I enter in you’d make me an afterthought and I’ll need to recite this entire litany again and ask: am I an Afterthought?